The clues for this Seasonal Show were presented in three blocks:

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Sorry this is so late – I wrote it up at lunchtime but the site’s been down for most of the afternoon with an “Unable to connect to database” error.

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Looking at the grid before I started saw checking was low in some cases eg 2 in 5-letter words, 3 in 7-letters words so I suspected a theme.   Having solved it however, I cannot see one apart from the 4 symmetrically placed (2,3,4) entries, all having THE as the second word.   Difficult, but you expect that with Monk, and some excellent clues as usual – solving time  52 mins.

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I found this one very straightforward. Solving time, 12 mins
Some notes on clues below – happy to explain others if asked.

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I had some trouble finishing this one. One reason was that I was unfamiliar with the expression “to wet the baby’s head”. It stems, I understand, from baptism but has come to mean imbibing much alchohol in celebration of a birth! Then there were just several clues that I found difficult: 14A, 1D, 15D and 17D.

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Quite an esoteric theme for this one, although it is readily flagged and accessible thanks to the preamble, “The beasts are 8″ (i.e. 8D). I thought it strange that the creatures in question were referred to as “beasts” but have just noticed, on starting this entry that it’s a play on today’s puzzle number (xy,666). I shall be looking to litter my conversations tomorrow with the answer to 13A, as my newly-acquired “phrase of the week”.

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